Whispers woke up Einar from his slumber, he groaned as he got up and saw himself in the back of a cart. In the distance a man and a woman were talking to each other and stole glances at him.
Slowly he got off the cart and approached them. The man was short, his hair and beard were both grey and in his hand he had a sickle. He wore a loose beige shirt and dark brown pants with simple leather shoes.
The woman was taller than the man, but she too wore the same type of clothes. A loose beige gown and a scarf around her head. They were farmers, from what he could see. A small sack of potatoes and other vegetables lay besides the woman.
Einar's legs gave out and he fell on his knees, he breathed hard. He had overworked himself the last few days and now got the repercussions twofold.
"Ha...ha...thank you." Einar chimed in on their talk.
"M'lord, no need to thank me. It was my wife who found you laying on the edge of that cliff." The man emphasized and pointed towards a cliff not too far away.
"I'm Hedra, m'lord. This ones wife." She chuckled.
"And I'm Thoman, this ones husband and the farmer of Blackvale.
M'lord, do you mind telling us what were you even doing in the dangerous parts of Wyrmbreak Wastes?" Thoman questioned and he picked up the sacks and took them inside a small tower adjacent to a farmhouse.
"Please drop the honorifics, I'm no lord now as I was stripped of all titles I once had held.
I was exiled and given Blackvale as my dominion but my captors abandoned me at the start of the Wyrmbreak Wastes near the Aurion Empire." Einar explained.
The man and woman looked at each other and nodded. The woman went inside and brought out a sword and its sheath. She put the sheath around her waist and let the sword rest on her hip. Einar was confused by all this.
"Before you say anything, I am a deserter knight from the Vellith Dominion." Hedra explained.
"Is Blackvale full of people like me...you...us? Betrayed and abandoned?" Einar pleaded.
"Yes, I've spent the last ten years here. And I've seen so many people get sent here or people who run away. Some stick around for a day, some months and some years. Only a select few have stayed here." Hedra murmured, it was enough for Einar to hear.
Thoman came outside from the farmhouse and both of them got onto the cart, Hedra gestured him to get on the cart since they were going inside Blackvale city now. Their farmhouse was located near the eastern gate of Blackvale.
"How should we address you, if not with lord?" Thoman asked.
"Call me Einar. Just Einar. I don't want anyone to call me lord just because of an Imperial Decree." Einar answered as the eastern gate of Blackvale came into view.
*****
The eastern part of Blackvale was were farmers and people of other professions like those lived. Shops of fruits and vegetables were open but all of them had little to no stock. The people were thin, malnourished and their eyes full of despair.
Einar clicked his tongue, seeing all those people like that put a bad taste in his mouth. He had always worked for the welfare of the civilians and now he saw the poor conditions in which the people of Blackvale lived.
The cart slowly made its way to the middle district, it was empty except for a few houses which had inhabitants. This was area the administration lived in but what administration would a dying territory have?
In the middle a few blocks away, a top a cliff stood the Black Castle. It's walls cracked and broken from places. Moss and plants covered its walls and towers. Einar got down from the cart and was led by the couple to a building just before the entrance to the castle.
Judging by the looks, it was a military barracks. Einar made his way inside and his widened when he saw the person sitting on the opposite chair.
Memories he had long forgotten came rushing to him. He was about seven when he first met him. Sir Cadus Varnhart, one of the Seven Shields of Aurion.
He was the shield assigned to Einar when he was a child, and one of the few people who showed him warmth, trained him and shaped his beliefs.
Einar's heart felt heavy, tears came to his eyes but he persisted and didn't let a single one leave his eyes. Sir Cadus looked at him after finishing writing something on a piece of paper.
His skin was weathered like old leather. A lion's mane of white hair was tied in a warrior's knot. His left eye was a light grey due to an old wound, and his armor was a patchwork of iron and bronze. It was aged but unbroken.
"Who is this man, Hedra?" Cadus questioned in his usual calm tone.
His voice felt like a lullaby to Einar who had last seen Cadus over a decade ago before he was exiled due to refusing an assassination.
Hedra looked at the how Einar's face changed as soon as he saw Cadus.
"Stand up. Never crawl. Not even in front of a king." Einar gushed as a smile formed on his face.
Cadus was stunned, his mouth was opened wide as he rose up from his chair and hugged Einar.
"Prince Einar, is that really you?" Cadus pleaded.
"Yes, yes it is me Sir Cadus.
It has been so long. I never crawled nor bowed even in front of my father." Einar replied.
A smile formed on Cadus's face as he broke the hug. His student, who was deemed useless and a dunce was far more worthy of being a leader than the others.
Unlike his father and older siblings, he never saw commoners as different, beneath him. And yet, for all his achievements he was abandoned at the end.
"Don't tell me you ended up in Blackvale like how this teacher of yours ended up here?" Cadus chuckled.
"Yes." Einar replied and went silent.
Cadus was not expecting such a reply. It made him furious enough that the ground beneath them trembled. He was a grandmaster level knight proficient in emission and imbuing. Soon it stopped, he made Einar sit on a chair and went back to his own.
Setting aside the paper and files in front of him he crossed his arms and looked at Einar and said,
"My stubborn cub tell me what happened in Solspire for King Elsinar to abandon and exile the son of the woman he loved the most."
*****
Near the southern gate of Blackvale, deep below the earth a abandoned ruin echoed with vessence being emitted by two objects.
One being a shard of sorts and the other a sword with a black blade. Eerie whispers filled the ruins as the lights inside flickered. The crown shall soon be awakened and completed and the Hollow King would finally be able to live out the eternity slothfully.